The Oltrepò Aquila Bean is a native bean belonging to the “Aquila” group which is attributable to the selection of various ecotypes by farmers over the years. This type of legume was named after the explanation given by Angelo Peri in the Italian Vocabulary of Cremona (1847) which reports how the beans "show in their curvature (the face of the seed on which the hilum is found, is a little curved sometimes) the likeness of a painted eagle.”
It is a shelling bean with a climbing stem that is grown at home in small gardens where the plants are able to climb on support branches.
The pod is stringless, about 9 centimetres long and just over 1 centimetre wide; when dry, the pod has a smooth, yellow-cream surface with slight indents in between where the seeds are. Furthermore, the pod tends to curl up in a spiral. Each pod contains 7 seeds that are 11-12 millimetres long, with an almost rectangular shape, a glossy surface and a uniform creamy white colour, except around the hilum which is wrapped by a typical double-headed eagle shape in a brick-red colour.
Once shelled, Aquila beans are used mainly in minestrone and soups.
The Oltrepò Aquila Bean is widespread among the rolling mountainous slopes of Oltrepò Pavese and has been handed down among the different generations of farmers in the area. It appears that the presence of this legume can date back to at least the second half of the nineteenth century, when some Aquila beans from the Voghera area were presented at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1878.
The Oltrepò Aquila Bean is grown in the upper Val Tridone Pavese and, today, it is highly at risk: there are fewer and fewer farmers who own the seeds, and, following the drought over the summer of 2019, some plants have not been able to produce legumes with fertile seeds.
This bean variety has been the subject of research projects that have been completed by some professors and researchers from the University of Pavia, who have also collected a lot of information on a large number of local Lombard varieties in a publication ("Traditional Lombard agronomic varieties at risk of extinction or genetic erosion Vegetables and cereals: an overview ", G. Rossi, F. Guzzon, M. Canella, E. R. Tazzari, P. Cauzzi, S. Bodino, N. M.G. Ardenghi, Pavia University Press, 2019).
The research activities necessary for the reporting of this product in the Ark of Taste online catalogue were financed by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, the General Directorate of the Tertiary Sector and Corporate Social Responsibility – notice n° 1/2018 “Slow Food in action: communities protagonists of change”, pursuant to Article 72 of the Tertiary Sector Code, referred to in Legislative Decree No. 117/2017.
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